Staff Reporter.
Two-time Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka on Sunday pulled out of the opening Grand Slam of the year barely a week before it starts, organisers said.
“Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from the Australian Open. We will miss her at AO2023,” the tournament said on Twitter. No reason for the Japanese star’s withdrawal was given.
It was another big blow for the tournament after US Open champion and world number one Carlos Alcaraz also withdrew on Friday with a right leg problem.
The champion in Melbourne in 2019 and 2021, Osaka has not played a competitive match since pulling out of a tournament in Tokyo in September with abdominal pain and has slumped to 42 in the world rankings.
The four-time Grand Slam winner has previously talked about struggles with her mental health and spent all of 2022 outside the top 10, enduring first-round defeats at both the French and US Opens. She withdrew from Wimbledon with an Achilles’ injury.
Speaking at the Pan Pacific Open in September, she admitted she had gone through “more down than up” in 2022.
“This year has been not the best year for me but I’ve learned a lot about myself,” she said.
Venus Williams has also withdrawn after sustaining an injury at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
Williams, 42, won her opening match in Auckland this week before losing to Zhu Lin in three sets.
Now in her 30th season on the Hologic WTA Tour, Williams had accepted a wild card into the Australian Open. She is a two-time runner-up in Melbourne, with her latest run to the final coming in 2017. Venus lost to sister Serena Williams in both those finals.
Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam winner, said last month on her YouTube channel that she was “playing a lot of tennis” since the US Open and would like to continue competing in 2023. Last year, she played four singles matches.